Which is more sacrilegious, a hack covering the Fab 4 or the act of posting that cover here even though there’s not an actual bass in it? 
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NIce job @Korrigan ! Nothing sacrilegious about doing a Beatles cover, I’m guilty of a few myself.
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Sweet! Are you playing one of yours?
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Yessir, was playing #56 while taking a break from working on #58. 
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Well done! Sounded great.
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@Barney - that was awesome. Enjoyed your playing, enjoyed the song and really enjoyed what you did with the video. Great job - thanks…
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Just catching up on hundreds of posts in this thread, so sorry that I can’t comment individually, but really impressed by everyone’s contributions. Great job everyone - the variety and talent in this thread is incredible…
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So. Allow me some nerves here.
This is my first attempt at really recording myself. This was done with Audacity, an iRig HD2, and my Ibanez SR700 straight in. I don’t know the software very well, but I lowered the gain on the song, and raised the gain on my playing so that it could be heard over the song. I know my timing is off in a couple of places and there’s one flub towards the end of the song. Again, nervous, first time recording, blah blah blah.
Apologies it’s in MP3 and not a cool YouTube link or something. Please be kind to save my fragile ego, but critique at will. Constructively. 
MP3 edited for @terb’s comments below.
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that’s nice, congrats on your first cover
the bass tone is quite OK considering that it’s the bass straight into Audacity, that’s a good point and that’s not always the case. that said it saturates the DAI sometimes.
otherwise your mix is very hard to listen to because the bass track is so loud that we barely can hear the backing track.
hope it helps, congrats again !
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I figured that I’d want to have my bass track louder than the backing track so that the backing track’s bass isn’t too much in the mix, given that I don’t have the capability to remove it.
But I can easily adjust the levels to give a bit more backing, and a bit less “Tim murdering the bassline”.
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Had to reply to this one @JustTim…. First off, GREAT first effort! Wish my first time recording was as good as yours…
As for the mix, who cares…. What I listen to is your bass tones, muting, timing, and attack…. When you get right down to it, those are the things that really matter (at least to me) anyway…
Tones - Not bad for a first time…. For this song it might have worked a bit better if there were a little more “dirt” in the tones. To me, it was a bit too mellow clean for an AC/DC tune… But, not bad overall.
Muting - You might wanna work a bit on this… There was too much sustain and note carry over… Tones from previously plucked notes were carrying over into the next notes being played…. Muting those previously played notes will provide a clean transition into the next note being played - for this song, distinctive notes make for a solid bass line…
Timing - Yea, there were a couple of spots that could have been a bit better, but I’m thinking that once you worked on Muting to remove latent tonal carryover, and worked on Attack, then timing may address itself and self heal in those few spots in the song…
Attack - For this song, this is a biggie…. Your attack is way to mellow… Try hitting those notes hard (when needed) with a definite mute after each so that each note builds a solid foundation for the lead guitarist to work off of. This is one of those songs that you need to “feel”…. You need to focus on the music more than focusing on which note to play next…. Having a “mushy”, “soft and sustained” bass note for this particular song kinda takes away from the hard core meaty hard rock heart and soul life blood of this piece…
I apologize if I’m being too blunt or whatever…. Don’t mean anything bad, just trying to provide a little different view than how you “mix” or “record” yourself playing music.
Keep On Thumpin’!
Lanny
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Excellent first cover! A few timing issues like you mentioned, but overall, very good and congrats on performing and posting!
As far as the backing track, moises.ai (a website) does a half-decent job removing the bass if you were interested in looking into that…
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@JustTim - first things first, this was GREAT, congrats on your first cover!
I heard the post @terb edit, FYI - and it sounded great.
Bass still a bit high but it was perfect to hear your playing.
A couple of logistics….
- Never never apologize for anything you post here. Put it out there and be proud, you can only learn from it.
- Stripping the bass can be done a few ways if you want to do that piece, see Pam & I’s courses (Part 1, you can search for “Pam &John’s” and it should come up), software is free.
- You don’t ever have to learn about posting videos if you don’t want to, or production value, etc. Doing so is another side-skill-set that you might want to learn, or not. It doesn’t matter to us here.
- FYI if you do ever go to upload an AC/DC cover, you will have to put it on Vimeo. AC/DC is one of the bands that does not allow their stuff on YouTube
I thought you did an excellent job. Timing blips and blurbs were minimal to me and more toward the end. But overall you did great.
Tone worked well for me too, esp since you were not really trying for that as much as getting your first cover up.
I did not notice the muting issues noted by others as much.
I really think you did great, well done man.
Keep ‘em coming!
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Thanks for all the feedback, folks! A few questions/comments:
Are you talking about these parts?
G————————————|—————————————————————————|
D————————————|*———————————————————————*|
A————————————|*—2—0———————————————————*|
E———3—2—0————|————————————————3—2—0————|
G———————————————————————————————————————|
D———————————————————————————————————————|
A———2—2—2—2———0—0—0—0———————————————————|
E———————————————————————0^0—0—0—0———3—0—|
When I listen to the song, it sounds to me like those notes are ringing and sustaining. So, I let a lot of those notes ring and sustain on purpose. You’re probably right and that’s probably incorrect though.
No issues whatsoever! I appreciate the feedback. Too blunt would have been “OMG, that’s the worst cover I’ve ever heard, you totally suck and should give up the bass!”
I am definitely interested, I’ll check it out. Thanks!
The crazy thing is that when you and Pam first started talking about them I was SUPER excited, and then I promptly and completely forgot you’d done them. I’ll check them out for sure now.
I plan to. Turns out, bringing a song into Audacity is super simple, as is getting it to play in my headphones while the pass-through on my iRig pumps my bass into my amp.
Again, many thanks to all!
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There were a few obvious parts (at least to me) - In the middle of the song, and then again towards the end… However throughout the song, accentuating (hit hard and immediately mute) the “One” beat (when the kick hits)… Hit it and then mute it before moving on to other notes…
A lot of times what we may hear as sustain when we’re playing can be the harmonics of the rhythm and lead guitar player holding notes or chords. This song (particularly) has a definite bass boom that is short and defined - especially on the “One” count. Think of the bass in thins song as being the “cannon” in the song… It “Booms”, and then the residual carry over sound would be the sounds of the rhythm and lead guitars - your bass notes in counts “Two”, “Three” and “Four” are fills that help support the rhythm and lead guitar harmonics… Play “One” as if your bass was the cannon “BOOM”… silent, then fill for the rest of the count… It’s hard to explain, but when we use our instruments to help tell a story, our instruments then become the tools that take on that particular personality… In this case, a cannon… It’s kinda like a special sound effect that you’re creating in order to convince the listener that the song ain’t messing’ around, and they’ll get their ass’s kicked unless they stand up, throw their fists in the air and yell, “We Salute You!” (right after that big bass “Boom”)…
Sorry if I can’t explain it better, but hey, it’s all fun!! Still a great job on an AC/DC crowd pleaser!
Keep On Thumpin’!
Lanny
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